Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Finding Beauty - Dave and Tommy & Murphy Kruger, Philatelist

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

“Our daughter is living with a man who takes pictures of roadkill!” We’re dealing with difficult and weighty matters on this week’s episode. Yes, this week is all about art and beauty. Dave is slightly perturbed and not a little afraid to receive an invite to an art exhibit about roadkill. The artist is his daughter’s boyfriend, Tommy.  And Jess shares a backstory about Stuart’s favourite handy hint for handling difficult conversations; and how her attempt to follow that advice nearly ended badly. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. We have two stories for you today. Two stories about art. We're going to start with a story about Stephanie and her boyfriend Tommy. In this one, Dave wrestles with two monumental topics. The first is his daughter's future, or more specifically, her potential future with her boyfriend Tommy. And the second? The second is Dave's residual trauma lingering from the night when he was burned badly by the heat of avant-garde art. Hilarious. This is Dave and Tommy. This is Dave and Tommy.

The invitation arrived by post. Dave, who comes home for lunch most days, was the first to see it. It was addressed in his daughter's handwriting. And the first thing I thought, he said, before I opened it, was wedding. I thought they were getting married. The envelope certainly stood out from the bills. Flecked and fashioned from handmade paper. Did it occur to you that they might have mentioned something, said Morley?

I mean, before they sent us an invitation? She is our daughter. When he did open it, what he found was a piece of torn paper with a photographic negative staple to it there's nothing written on the paper but if you held the negative up to the light there was a message it was an invitation though not to a wedding, to a gallery, an invitation to an opening. Tommy, Stephanie's boyfriend Tommy, was having his first big show. It's very impressive, said Morley. Crushed, said Dave. That was what it was called.

The exhibition, I mean. Crushed. I don't know, said Dave. It sounds weird to me. The opening was scheduled for a Monday evening. It's a bit of a haul to the gallery, maybe two and a half hours door to door. But they were going to go, of course. Do we have to, said Dave. of course. Do we have to? said Dave. Morley booked them into a room at the Winsome Inn, which was the place they stayed the weekend they dropped Steph off, her first year away. How many years ago was that? They arrived in the afternoon and had lunch at a table by the water, the pond so close you could almost touch it. The waterfall just out of sight.

Same table, said Dave. I'm not sure, said Morley. Absolutely, said Dave, reaching for the ketchup. And then he said, so what's been crushing him? What do you think? The modern world? The media? The maple leaves? A few hours later, they were standing in front of a blown-up, larger-than-life photograph of a flattened snake. In a gallery full of close-up, poster-sized portraits of dead animals that had been run over by cars. Snakes crushed by cars. Frogs crushed by cars. A turtle crushed by a car. I don't get it, said Dave. And then, doesn't this worry you? This is the man our daughter could be marrying. Morley said, no one's mentioned anything about marriage. Marriage is not on the table as far as I know. Dave said, well, they might as well be living together. Morley said, actually, they are.

Exactly, said Dave. Our daughter is living with a man who takes pictures of roadkill. First off, that's not normal. Second off, I have no idea what these pictures mean or what I'm supposed to think of them. And third off, what do you mean they're living together? I thought he had his own place. And then he drifted off. And then he drifted off, got a glass of wine, and wandered around the room chatting to the few people he knew and to the others he didn't,

keeping his eye on his daughter and her boyfriend as he circled, trying his best to steer clear of them and the conversation he didn't want to have about the show. When the gallery owner stood on a chair by the front and tapped his glass, Dave joined everyone else, standing in a circle and nodding during the speeches about existential ambiguity and adjacent polarity and didactic surrealism and reverential reductionism. Someone else stood up, a professor from the university, and proposed a toast, and Dave raised his glass. When there was applause, he clapped. He tried his best to follow along,

though nothing anyone was saying made any sense to him. When the speeches were over, Morley appeared at his side. Come here, she said, have you seen this one? She steered him to a picture of a giant cedar waxwing. The bird, almost as big as a child, had been shot against a blue, out-of-focus background. Its eyes closed, its head bowed. It looked more like a monk inviting him to prayer than a bird who had flown into a car.

Morley said, it's beautiful. Dave said, yeah, but what does it mean? Then he said, it makes me feel sad. Then he said, my father would have hated these. Charlie. Charlie, who would pull his truck to the side of the road whenever he came across anything that had been run over. Then he'd carry whatever it was into the bushes. Charlie, who told him that they shouldn't let dead animals lie there in the road where they'd

get run over again and again. There's no dignity in that, said Charlie. Back then it was embarrassing. Now it seemed to make sense. Of course, it was easier to stop to administer to roadkill if you lived in the narrows back in the day. Not so easy now. Not the way people drove these days. When the show ended, they all went back to the inn to have dinner together for the second time in their lives. Tommy and Stephanie, Tommy's parents, and Dave and Morley. And more fine things were said. Tommy's mother said how proud she was. Morley said how the pictures reminded her of her childhood. When I was a kid, she said, we used to pick up dead things all the time.

Stephanie said her favorite was the wax wing that Morley had shown Dave. No one said anything profound. It wasn't like the speeches at the gallery. Until Tommy's father stood up and proposed a toast, stealing liberally from the gallery owner's speech as he did it, which made Dave, who hadn't said anything, feel a bit better. Tommy's father, a university professor, clearly didn't have any more of a clue about his son's work than Dave did.

When dinner was over, they said their goodbyes. Tommy's parents were going back to the city, Dave and Morley, upstairs. But a half hour later, to his astonishment, Dave found himself in Tommy's car rather than in his hotel room, alone with Tommy. It was Stephanie's idea. Just drive along the ridge, she said. Just go out and back. Who knows? Maybe you'll find something. It was about a mile to the top of the ridge. The stars pin-pricking the dark black sky. The road in front of them, starless and blacker. Mostly at night, said Tommy, you find owls. They fly low. They get hit. It was awkward. First, they had never been alone in a car before, the two of them. The

second, there they were, alone in the car. And third, worst of all, they were driving under the intimate cover of darkness, under the intimidating influence of art. Tommy had the radio on, but softly, country and western. You really couldn't hear it. And they drove. And when they got to the top, they came to a T-junction. And Tommy turned left, so the valley was they came to a T-junction. And Tommy turned left, so the valley was below them on their left and the forest to their right.

They'd been going maybe 20 minutes along the ridge road. And the forest had gradually given away to the fields and woodlots when Tommy braked. There were no other cars around. What, said Dave. Tommy flicked on the high beams and backed up. Then he jockeyed around a bit until the headlights caught the shadow. A raccoon, said Dave, leaning forward. Or is it a dog?

It's a fox, said Tommy. I think you're right, said Dave, who was reaching for the door. Tommy said, wait. Tommy said, before you get out, you want to be sure there's nothing around. Coyotes or something. It's like a mafia thing to stop your car in the middle of nowhere to check out a body. As they walked toward the fox, Dave could feel his heart pounding. In a weird way, it was exhilarating. There was a light and a light stand in the trunk of the car. Tommy went and got it and he set up the light and then he crouched beside the fox. Dave didn't want to disturb him, so he went back and leaned against the hood of the car and watched him at work.

Each time he took a shot, the light flashed with a soft woof. Each time the light went off, the night seemed blacker. When he finished, they both stood by the car. I always wonder, said Tommy, looking around, if there's a mate somewhere watching or babies. I always wonder how it all went down. Dave looked into the darkness surrounding them. And then Tommy threw the light into the trunk and closed it. Tommy said, I know some of the pictures are beautiful in some weird way.

And I like that. I have an appreciation of that. But mostly I just feel sad when I see them. Mostly they don't feel beautiful to me. Dave said, that's how they made me feel. Then Tommy said, my grandfather died a few years ago. I remember, said Dave. That's when I started doing this, said Tommy.

Like poetry, you can find beauty in the most unexpected places. In a snowy wood and between the folded petals of a rose, yes, of course. But in sorrow as well as happiness, in death as well as life. You buy a dictionary in a second-hand bookstore and somewhere halfway between the beginning and the end, waiting for you to turn the page, there is a flower pressed between the words. Sometimes poetry's hidden. And sometimes it's lying on the side of the road in full view.

I don't think it's poetic, said Tommy. I don't think that at all. Dave said, all those people tonight thought so. All those people who bought prints and said all those things, that's got to mean something. They were back in the car now. They were on their way home. Tommy said, all that stuff tonight, all those things they said at the gallery,

I didn't understand half that stuff. Dave almost clapped his hands almost whooped he almost said I didn't either but he didn't say that he didn't say anything Tommy was staring intensely into the night

Tommy hadn't finished I'll tell you what I think said Tommy I think it said Tommy. I think it means that beauty trumps morality. That's the way it is. That's the way it's always been. Don't think it should be like that,

but that's the way it is. It's the way of the world. Then he said, maybe it'd be better if everyone came to my show and didn't like it and left. Someone once said that you'll never find a better place in the world for a difficult conversation than in a dark car. You don't have to look at the other person. And you both know when the trip ends, the conversation will too. Dave closed his eyes.

Dave said, you'd have to be a special kind of person to go to your show and not get it. It wasn't a complete lie. He just needed some time and encouragement to get there. Dave said, here's what I think. I think there's a collision happening between civilization and the natural world. And I think you are the witness. Tommy said, I don't like it that animals are getting killed by cars. And then he said, sometimes I'll find a little bird, like the one of the waxwing.

Did you see that one? He looked like he was praying, his head bowed and his eyes shut, and that slash of red blood on his head. In some messed up way, that's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. But I don't have a clue why. That's the thing. I feel these big feelings and I don't understand why. They were almost back at the inn. As they turned between the stone gates, Dave felt a weight had lifted off his shoulders.

There was no great big mystery, except for the great big mystery. We live, and then we die. What did John Paul Richter say? We all have exactly two and a half minutes to live. One for smiling and one for sighing and a half a one to love. For it's in the middle of that minute, the loving one, that we die.

And what we want more than anything, said Dave, between the living and the dying, is for someone to take notice. For someone to say, it matters that we're here. You think that's what I'm doing, said Tommy? Saying it matters? doing, said Tommy, saying it matters? Maybe, said Dave. Mostly, said Tommy, what I think I'm saying is that I wish people would drive slower. And also that my grandfather was still here.

I miss him. Dave was smiling as he was getting out of the car. Thanks for taking me out, he said. I loved seeing you at work. And I love your work. It's true, we did. Like I said, it just took them a while to get there. When he came into their room, Morley was still awake,

sitting on the bed with a magazine in her hands. When he came in, she put it down, and she drew up her knees and put her arms around her knees and she said, how'd it go? Dave said, we found a fox. He took pictures and you know what he did when he was finished? When he was finished, he carried the fox to the side of the road and covered it with some brush, just like my father would have done. Did you believe that? He was about to reassure her that their daughter wasn't involved with an axe murderer. But he looked at her smile and realized he didn't have to say that. She had already read Tommy's pictures the way they were intended. As usual, she was way ahead of him. Instead of saying any of that,

he said the thing about carrying the fox off the road, and then he just shrugged, thinking as he looked at his wife and thought of his daughter and, yes, his daughter's boyfriend and the night that had just passed, all of it, that he was a lucky man. He could hear the clock. The clock was ticking. And he knew he had had his laugh and his sigh,

but his 30 seconds of love was still not up. This was a good night, he said. We should do this sort of thing more often. That was the story we call Dave and Tommy. Although, mostly we just call it Roadkill. And come to think of it, we also called it crush. So here we go again with those fickle story titles. There are so many parts of that story that feel cinematic to me. Especially my favorite scene, Dave and Tommy in the car.

I love the image of the two of them driving around in the dark, looking for death, but talking about the intersection of beauty and life, both of them feeling awkward. Stuart loved setting difficult conversations in cars, both, as he said in that story, both people have the knowledge that eventually the trip will end, and with it, the conversation. And also, when you're in the car, you're looking forward, so you don't have to be looking at each other's eyes, which, if the conversation's really difficult, can just feel like too much, you know? Stuart loved giving this advice. I'm not sure where he got it himself, but he loved to share it liberally. I'm pretty sure most of Stuart's friends have heard it at

least once. I know he shared it with Louise, backstage producer Louise Curtis, and she's used it with her kids. Greg, did he ever tell you? Greg's nodding his head. Yep. Yeah. He also told Greg to clue. Stuart was always sharing this advice and he certainly shared it with me. And I took his advice. I use this trick all the time. I talk to my own kids this way and I talk to my husband this way. But it did backfire on me once. Josh and I were on our way to Toronto, probably to record a show. I don't remember. What I do remember is I wanted to talk to him about whether or not we should have kids. And so I took Stuart's advice and I decided to have the conversation in the car. Now, I'm not a worrier.

In fact, sometimes I wish I was slightly more of a worrier because I am overly optimistic. And sometimes my don't worry, everything will be okay attitude gets me into trouble. That said, I do, of course, have some things like everyone that cause me some anxiety. I worry about finances. I try to squirrel away money whenever I can. I have thirst anxiety. You will never, ever catch me without a water bottle. And I worry about running out of gas. I very rarely let my gas tank go below a quarter tank. But having difficult conversations is not anxiety producing for me.

Still, this was a big conversation. So I took Stuart's advice and waited until Josh and I were in the car to bring it up. As you can imagine, it was an intense discussion. It wasn't difficult. It was good, but it was deep. And I remember looking up at one point, coming up for air and thinking, we're in Kingston already? And at some point after Kingston and before Toronto, I looked down at the dash or over at the dash, Josh was driving. I looked over at the dash and our gas light was on. I'm not sure I'd ever seen that

before because as I said, I very rarely let it go below a quarter tank. But I was distracted. I wasn't paying attention to the gas gauge. I was paying attention to the conversation. Our car at the time also had this thing that would tell you exactly how many kilometers you had left in the tank. So I reached over and toggled over to the screen that counted the kilometers we had left. It said 40 kilometers. That calmed me down. kilometers. That calmed me down. And Josh was like, oh yeah, it can go forever with the gas light on. Josh does not have the same running out of gas anxiety I do. He's the opposite. He likes to, and I'm quoting now, track the miles. He has this weird thing where he waits until the tank is like extremely empty before filling up because he wants to know exactly how far he can go on one tank of gas. As if on cue, the countdown screen changed from 40 kilometers to 30.

I didn't have to say anything. Josh knew what I was thinking, but I wasn't that worried about it. I mean, we were on the 401 somewhere between Kingston and Toronto. I knew we were going to find a gas station. Now, this is my podcast, so I can tell the story however I want. But I'm an honest person, so I should probably tell you that if Josh were sitting here next to me, he'd tell the story differently. He'd say that at this point, I was panicking. And he might be right about that. He was like, Jess, don't worry. We're on the 401. We're going to be okay. It's fine. And I was like, we're going to die. He kept driving. I pulled out my phone and started trying to find a gas station. The reading went from 30 kilometers to 20 kilometers. I got my phone out. I'm looking at Google Maps.

I'm calculating distance. I'm trying to stay calm. And then it went down to 10 kilometers. And that's when Josh started paying attention. And that's what really scared me. Like when he started paying attention, I knew we were in trouble. Besides, I mean, 10 is basically zero, right? Like would they even show a zero?

Are they going to say you have zero kilometers left in the tank? That's when my reptilian brain kicked in. I put my phone down. I stopped trying to figure it out. I abandoned my GPS and I started using my just PS, operating on instinct, feeling it out. Take this exit, I said in a very calm, orderly manner, not panicked at all, not in the slightest. I don't remember where it was, but it felt vaguely familiar. I spent a lot of time over the years driving on the 401,

pulling off the highway to fuel the tour bus or use the washroom, and I had like kind of a memory that there was a gas station somewhere around here. I remember that when we got off the highway, we turned right, and that calculation was not based on some vague memory of filling up the tour bus. That calculation was made based on the fact that turning left was going uphill and turning right was going downhill. Josh, ever the pro, slipped the car into neutral and we coasted down the hill. And thank God there was a gas station at the bottom, just as my Jess PS had told me there would be. I think Josh was actually disappointed.

Like he had wanted to run out of gas. He'd wanted to test the limits. He'd wanted to finally answer that question, how far can you go after the gas light comes on? We never finished that conversation. We never came back to the discussion of kids or no kids. Although if you listen to this podcast regularly, you will have heard me talk about Eloise and Annabelle. So you know how the conversation ended eventually. I still agree with Stuart that a car is a good place for a deep conversation. But just make sure to keep your eye on the gas gauge as well as the road. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another story about Dave.

Stay with me. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. This is Murphy Kruger, Philatelist. Murphy Krueger, Philatelist. Choosing a hero is a delicate business, one that shouldn't be undertaken frivolously. For the heroes that we choose, whether real or imagined, whether from the world of fact or from the pages of fiction, will determine to a greater or lesser degree the things that we do and ultimately, if we allow them the privilege, the lives that we lead. Sam and his friend, Murphy, not boys anymore, but not yet men either, not even young men really, swinging in the awkward playground of in-between, are both of the dangerous age of heroes, old enough to recognize a heroic feat when they see one,

and young enough to answer the call of who knows what trumpet should it stir them to action. What trumpet should it stir them to action? They are, this day, sitting at one of the little tables in the back corner by the olives, at the back of Harmon's Fine Foods. It's a Saturday, almost 11. Sam has been at the little boutique grocery store since 7 a.m., stocking shelves and making coffees. He is on his break. Murphy, who knows Sam's schedule better than Sam knows it himself, has, as his habit of a Saturday morning, dropped in for a visit. The two boys are drinking coffees that Sam made, making the espresso the way Mr. Harmon has taught him.

But then, to the old man's horror, adding milk and caramel sauce, vanilla and salt, chocolate shavings and sugar, and then running it all through the blender with an equal amount of ice and topping the whole sorry mess with whipped cream and cinnamon. the whole sorry mass with whipped cream and cinnamon. An abomination, said the green grocer, shaking his head. A befoulement. A frappuccino, Mr. Harmon. A frappatouille, said Mr. Harmon. If you can use a straw or a spoon, it is not coffee.

It's delicious, Mr. Harmon. You should let me make you one. I would rather drink Kool-Aid, said Mr. Harmon. That was 10 minutes ago. Mr. Harmon's downstairs in his basement office now, sitting at his invoice-strewn desk, enjoying his habitual mid-morning indulgence, a cafe correcto, and gossiping with a man from Sardinia who supplies him with a sticky 25-year-old balsamic. What's the matter, says the man from Sardinia. Mr. Harmon is frowning at his little coffee cup. Mr. Harmon is frowning at his little coffee cup. It's just occurred to him that the literal translation for his grappa-laced espresso is corrected coffee. Maybe I put in too much grappa, he says.

It's tasting too sweet or something this morning. The man from Sardinia reaches for the bottle of fragrant brandy. Too much grappa is not enough, he says, and he tops up his cup. Directly above them, at the table by the cooler with the olives and the feta, the boys are still hunched over their drinks. They're talking about Murphy's new hero. I thought Ferrari was a car, says Sam. Philip von Ferrari, says Murphy, with a Y. We're talking stamps, not cars.

Philip Ferrari de la Renatiere, to be exact, recognized around the world by people who know these things as the greatest stamp collector who know these things as the greatest stamp collector who has ever lived. Ever, says Murphy, ever. His father was a financier. He was the Rothschild's arch rival. He built the Suez Canal. His son, Philip, who inherited his father's fortune, had three rooms in his Paris home, large rooms, and the rooms were lined with shelves all the way to the ceiling, and the shelves were crammed with his stamps. He employed three people full-time to curate his collection. And while they did that, Ferrari traveled the world buying stamps and paying for them with gold.

Murphy was running his finger around and around the froth, clinging to the lip of his empty cup. I, said Murphy earnestly, am going to be the next Ferrari. Just the week before, Murphy had told Sam he was going to circumnavigate the world on a unicycle. And here he was, a mere seven days later, rummaging in the backpack that was slung over the back of his chair. days later, rummaging in the backpack that was slung over the back of his chair. The thing about being a stamp collector, said Murphy, turning around, is that you only need one thing to get going. A rich father, said Sam. Murphy had pulled a huge magnifying glass out of the pack, a thick disk of gleaming glass with a long gold feather-shaped handle. A magnifying glass, said

Murphy, gives a person a certain gravitas. He put the magnifying glass on the table. Person like me, said Murphy, squinting at Sam, needs a certain gravitas in their life. needs a certain gravitas in their life. Murphy was polishing his glasses on his shirt tail. Sam picked up the magnifying glass and held it between them, staring at Murphy through the distorting glass. And then he whispered very quietly, Have you ever considered that you might be completely crazy? considered that you might be completely crazy? And that is when Mr. Harmon appeared out of the cellar, his red face set off by his white shirt and his forest green apron. Mr. Harmon was carrying

two espresso cups. I have to get back to work, said Sam. But he missed his chance. The moment Sam started to get up, Mr. Harmon waved him back down. Sit down, said Mr. Harmon. I want you boys to try something. He set the two cups of espresso down in front of them and stood back with his arms awkwardly by his side. Go on, he said. Go on. Sam peered at his cup suspiciously. Mr. Harmon, said Sam, have these got alcohol in them? You know we're too young for alcohol.

Murphy had already chugged his. Cafe correcto, said Murphy. The graph is way too sweet, Mr. Harmon. It tastes like Kool-Aid. If you like this, you should try a Frappuccino. It was another week before Murphy came up with his plan. I got it, he said. I knew you would, said Sam. The morning bell hadn't yet rung. the morning bell hadn't yet rung. They were doing laps around the ball field.

Attics, said Murphy. Everyone has a shoebox of letters in their attic. They do, said Sam. Murphy stopped walking. He held his arms out, palms up. This was so elementary. People keep old stuff in their attics. We get into the attics, we're going to find old letters with old stamps. It's the old ones that are valuable. Lunchtime. The next day. The school cafeteria. They're sitting opposite each other across a lunch table. I printed us business cards,

said Murphy. He slid an official-looking piece of cardstock across the table. Sam picked it up and turned it over. Murphy Kruger it read, attic inspector. Sam said, first off, no one is going to believe you're an attic inspector. Murphy said, why? Sam said, well, first, because there's no such thing. And second, even if there was, you're too young. And third, you can't go into someone's attic and pretend to be an inspector. That's false pretenses. How about junk removal, said Murphy,

pulling a second card out of his pocket and sliding it across the table. That would be theft, said Sam. Not if they give me permission, said Murphy. But it's not junk you're removing, said Sam. It would be unethical junk removal. Murphy put the cards away. He had a new one the next day. Murphy Kruger, philatelist. Honesty is always the best policy, said Sam. I did one for you too, said Murphy. Sam read his card. Philatelist assistant. The rarest Canadian stamp known to exist is a stamp that was printed in 1868. It is a two-cent stamp that features an image of the Queen, Victoria, and it's printed on unusually thick

paper. It's called laid paper. The stamp is known as the two-cent large queen on laid paper. There are only three copies known to exist, although collectors have long believed there must be others. In attics, said Murphy. They're in attics. Experts say that whoever finds the next two-cent large queen on laid paper will have made themselves a million dollars. One million dollars, said Murphy. They talked about it incessantly. How should they split the million?

What would they do with their share? They decided the right thing would be 50-50 with the owner, then 50-50 between themselves. You deserve more, said Sam. A quarter of a million is enough, said Murphy. It's not good for you to get too much money too fast. Look at Justin Bieber. He drew up a contract, and they signed it. They decided they would start on the following weekend. It was Murphy who decided they should get dressed up.

Shirts and ties, said Murphy. Clothes make the man. Sam said, I don't have a tie. Murphy said, borrow one of your father's. Sam said, I don't think he has one either. So the following Friday after school, they were standing in Sam's kitchen, each of them in an oversized shirt they had borrowed from Murphy's father. Murphy was holding a briefcase, magnifying glass and contracts, he said, tapping it. Then he turned

and he headed for the door. On his way, he said, I thought we should start at your house. Sam said, we are at my house. Murphy nodded at Sam's mother. Morley was sitting at the desk by the back door Murphy said, we'll be right back They went out the side door and headed around to the front Murphy said, we have to be professional

Then he said, you ring the bell Sam said, why me? Murphy said, I'm the philatelist. You're the philatelist's assistant. They went out again the next Friday. It was this second Friday that Murphy got his first stamp. They found it in Dorothy Capper's house. Dorothy runs the little bookstore a few doors down from Sam's father's record store.

Dorothy, who lives by herself, was delighted to welcome them into her house and give them the blessing of her attention. They sat at the kitchen table while Murphy explained their proposal. She signed the contract and then went out to her garage and fetched a box of letters. They took the box into the basement and emptied it onto the floor. They made a pile of the envelopes and then went through them one by one. They were almost done when they found the torn fragment of brown paper with the blue stamp. Or Murphy did. He stared at it through the magnifying glass for the longest time.

What is it? said Sam. It's beautiful, said Murphy. Sam crawled over and sat beside his friend. It's like a miniature work of art, said Murphy. Let me see, said Sam, tugging the magnifying glass away. He was looking at a 50-cent blue nose. He was looking at a 50-cent blue nose. Issued in 1929, it is an engraved image of the same schooner that sails across the Canadian Dime.

The stamp is the gray-blue of a faded $5 bill. The ship, sailing across it from left to right on a windward tack, it sails full, heeling ever so slightly. Murphy said, if you keep staring you feel like you could crawl right in. Sam said, I've been on that ship. I was on that ship in Halifax. It's beautiful, said Murphy. I'm not sure whether he meant the boat or the stamp. Not that it matters. He'd be right about both. The boat is beautiful. Collectors from around the world say that the Canadian 50-cent Bluenose stamp

is one of the most beautiful stamps ever printed anywhere. There's something about the blueness, the lines of the engraving and the lines of the boat, the composition and the scale, the sea and the subject. A beautiful one in mint condition might go for $300 or $400. in mint condition might go for three or four hundred dollars. The soiled one, cancelled and creased like the one on the brown paper the boys were looking at, well, you can get one like that for thirty dollars. They brought it upstairs to Dorothy. I want this one, said Murphy. He had no idea of its value. There was just something about the way it looked. You can have that one, said Dorothy.

They went right to his house and looked it up on the web. I knew it, said Murphy. The Monday after school, Murphy went to the bank and withdrew $30. He met Sam at Harmon's and gave him $7.50. Then he went to see Dorothy. He had a $20 bill in his pocket. I owe you $15, he said. She almost didn't take it.

She almost said, it's not like I knew it was there or anything. But then it occurred to her that that might be disrespectful. Murphy, sensing her hesitation, thought, go ahead, insult me. It was the briefest moment. But they were both aware of it. So it didn't seem brief to them. It seemed big. It felt awkward. Then, awkwardly, Dorothy nodded and Murphy pulled out the bill, and she took it and gave him change.

Thank you, she said. Out on the street, Murphy felt an unexpected surge of exhilaration. It was something about paying for the stamp that made it more precious. paying for the stamp that made it more precious. As he hurried along, it occurred to him that it was probably harder for him to hand over his $15 to Dorothy than it would have been for Philip Ferrari to fork over a bar of gold. Ferrari's fortune had been given to him. Murphy had to earn his money shoveling walks and cutting grass.

Ferrari was no longer a hero. He was a brother in arms. That stamp will not always be Murphy's favorite. Like all collectors and artists, Murphy will always be in love with his most recent acquisition. His favorite stamp will almost always be his latest, the one that still evokes the thrill of the hunt. still evokes the thrill of the hunt. Eventually he'll put his collection away, but memory is patient.

And one evening, years from now, years and years from now, Murphy will be looking for something, and there, in a box of books, in his attic, he will find his long-forgotten, cloth-covered history of stamps, the book that got him going. As he picks it out of the box, it'll all come flooding back. He and Sam, dressed in his father's shirts,

going through the letters on the basement floor, and how he stood in the little bookstore praying that Ms. Capper wouldn't take his money, and how good it felt when she did. And as he remembers all that, he will flip the book open, and there, lying between the pages where he always kept it, he'll see the piece of torn brown paper with a little blue square, and he will feel the tug that

he felt that night in the basement when he first saw it. It is the tug of beauty, the awareness that there are things in the world that move us. Music and poetry, paint perfectly rendered, a building well done, big blue skies and big blue moons. And sometimes, when you're very lucky, things so small and soft you would never imagine.

A little glimpse, a little smile, the ever so light touch of a hand on yours. And yes, the little stamp stuck to a little piece of paper that says, if you just look long enough and hard enough, that it is beautiful enough that you could actually climb right in. actually climb right in. All the beauty stored there in a little picture of the little blue boat sailing across the deep blue sea. applause applause applause applause applause

applause applause applause That was the story we call Murphy Kruger Philatelist. We recorded that story in 2014 at the St. Jacobs Country Playhouse in St.

Jacobs, Ontario. I love the ending of that story, and it's kind of what I think both of today's stories are about. About art, and about the fact that there's no right or wrong when it comes to art. You can understand art, but there are no answers. There is only truly deep understanding. In that first story that we heard about roadkill, Stuart asks a bunch of questions. He is, by the way, I think examining his own art a little bit. If he were here, he would totally roll his eyes at that. He didn't write his stories with that kind of intention. He wrote from the heart, always, and his stories were layered with meaning and certainly layered with big feelings. But the analysis that I often give on this podcast, the analysis that I give about his stories, that's my analysis, not his. But I also think that

stories are about whatever you want them to be, whatever they are about to you. I don't think that the author's intention is necessarily the right answer. And he agreed. I mean, he's the one who taught me that. I remember once on the radio, I gave him a grade 11 English exam that had been sent into us by a listener. The exam was about one of his stories, Hello Monster. He wrote that story, but he failed the exam about that story. Now, maybe that means the exam is bogus, or maybe it means something else. I think great artists are often in touch with things that the rest of us just aren't. They aren't necessarily even conscious of it. They're just tapping into something so deep inside of them that it almost just

flows through them. So the conversation between Dave and Tommy is a little bit Stuart examining his own artistic impulses. Tommy sees something beautiful in his art, but he doesn't intellectualize it the way his professors do. And maybe if he did, he wouldn't be able to get to that place, that place of creation. That's what Stuart was like. He taught writing, but he taught writing nonfiction. He taught journalism, but he didn't like examining his fiction or what it meant. He often said he didn't want to understand it. He was afraid, I think, that if he understood it, he wouldn't be able to do it.

That if he understood it, the stories would stop coming to him. That if he understood, the magic wouldn't happen. That is so cool. And I totally get what he means. I'm a planner, but when it comes to writing, when I try to, I don't know, go elsewhere with my work, it works best when I don't plan it at all. It's best when I just sit down with my laptop in a quiet space that is all my own and just let things flow through me. I learned that at Stuart's knee. It was his way and it's mine too.

Now that doesn't mean that art doesn't mean anything to Tommy or that it didn't mean anything to Stuart. I think that means the exact opposite. It means that it comes from deep inside of him, from his experience. And it means that he didn't want to understand it because he wanted to make sure that it came from his tummy, not his brain. I like that. That second story about the stamps sort of says the same thing stewart leads us to this place where he's saying maybe art is not to be understood it is to be felt and to help us process what we're feeling in that second story he's saying art or beauty is wherever you find it. Murphy found it in a stamp. So many stamps are, of course, works of art. I love art. I have lots of pieces of art hanging on my walls, collected over the years. I have a Mika Lixier painting that says, use less words. It used to be Stuart's and it reminds me of him. I have a piece by Solo 7 that I bought in

Kibera in Nairobi that reminds me of my time there. I have a photograph by Michael Floman made with a flash of fireflies. But some of my favorite art pieces are not the kind of thing you'd see in a gallery. They'll never be included in an exhibition. There's the little postcard that I bought in Maine for a dollar. I was there on a trip with my friend Wendy, and this postcard just spoke to me. It's not an original. It's a print. There's probably tens of thousands of them out there. But it moves me. It makes me feel something.

And I have a tea towel that belonged to Josh's grandparents, his Bubby and Zadie. I stretched the tea towel onto canvas and it hangs on our mudroom wall, a pop of color that greets us as soon as we get home and reminds us of them. Art can do all of these things. It can remind us of something or someone or some place that we love. It can transport us to another place, another time, another emotion. I think the role of art is not necessarily to create beauty, but to help us see the beauty that is in the world, to remind us of how much beauty there already is in the world, to create paths in our brain that allow us to access that

beauty more easily, more frequently, more often. Stuart's work did that for me it still does and I hope it does that for you too all this beauty stored there in the deep blue sea we've got to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a minute with a sneak peek from next week's episode. So stick around. That's it for today. We'll be back here next week with another Davin Morley story, one that many of you have probably never heard before. There's something about the ghosts who live in the house where you live.

There is some kind of an inexpressible pull between the people who have lived and loved under the same roof as you have. The older you get and the longer you live in a place, the more the ghosts who live with you will call your name and the more you will hear them. That's next week on Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. You can hear the whole story next week on the podcast. Oh, and we'll also be playing one of the most requested letters

Stuart ever read on the Vinyl Cafe radio show, the one about the bagpiper at Vimy Ridge. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network Greg Duclute is our beautiful and artistic recording engineer Theme music is by my friend Danny Michelle The show is produced by Louise Curtis and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.